College

Lewis: Why you should care about the BCS championship By Lee Lewis Republican-American

LSU fans parade through the French Quarter as part of festivities for the upcoming BCS championship NCAA football game in New Orleans, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. Alabama takes on LSU for the national championship on Monday, Jan. 9. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Heading into the weekend, there were several questions dominating the sports chatter around our speck of the world. Of course, what matters to us doesn't necessarily translate into a more universal fascination, but that's sports.

In our neighborhood, these were among the top concerns:

1. What difference will it make for the defending national champions having Jim Calhoun back on the bench, screaming and sarcastically clapping his hands?

2. Will any of the former's antics or pleadings turn Alex Oriakhi into a formidable post man?

3. Can the Giants ride the arm of Eli Manning, the soft hands of Victor Cruz and a dangerous collection of pass rushers into a trip to the divisional round of the playoffs?

4. Who are the Patriots going to play next Saturday night?

As far as college and pro sports topics, those were about it as our weekend began in seasonal temperatures (if it were April, that is). Heck, the Red Sox and Yankees have played in far colder conditions than what we enjoyed on our early January Saturday.

I digress.

The topic that has generally been ignored around here, yet the topic that absolutely fascinates large swaths of our country, centers on the college football national championship game. Especially in the South, for obvious reasons, Monday night's game between LSU and Alabama for the BCS championship is the biggest thing to happen in years.

It is one of those events that will cause large segments of the population to cease all other activity once the ball is kicked off. Yet around here few people mention the game, so focused are we on the pro football playoffs.

In a way, this is understandable. The average NFL game this season attracted around 17.5 million viewers (that's the average), while the first LSU-Alabama meeting (easily the most hyped game of the college season) drew only a slightly higher audience.

Certainly on a national basis, pro football dominates.

And the college game carries with it a distinct regional appeal, making it huge in parts of the country where there is no clear pro alternative and in rural areas where rooting for State U. is nearly a religion. None of that means that the sport is confined to those parts of the country; it's just a more significant slice of the culture there than it might be in, say, the Northeast.

So not hearing much of a buildup for LSU-Alabama here is not a surprise.

All that said, this observer is anxiously waiting for the most important game of the college season (certainly with more fervor than the Bengals-Texans playoff game, for example). Moan as much as you'd like about the system that produces this matchup, but I believe it got the two best teams in the end.

Here are four thoughts on the national championship game:

A rematch? Much of the distaste for this game centers on the fact that it is a rematch of a regular season game. While that talk is big on the campuses of Oklahoma State and Stanford, it is widely heard elsewhere, too.

I don't understand what the big deal is. In other sports rematches are routine and no one complains. Next week we will be heralding possible games such as the Steelers vs. Patriots and Giants vs. Packers, both of which already happened during the regular season.

Big Game Brent. There is no question that Brent Musberger is a lightning rod as the lead announcer on these games. He will be accused of excessively hyping the game, of referring often to the point spread (other announcers avoid this like bad fish, but Brent rightly realizes that most of his audience is well aware of the Vegas number), and using some corny phrase ("This is for all the Tostitos").

But Brent has become so synonymous with these big games that his very presence makes it a special event. I like him on the games.

Long layoff: One of the biggest problems with the game is that it comes six weeks or so after the last game these teams have played. That's crazy.

All the momentum and storylines are built throughout the fall, then the entire sport goes on sabbatical until early January. Nuts.

No TD tension: What made LSU's 9-6 win in the Nov. 5 meeting with Alabama so interesting was the notion that both defenses were so good that if either team could score a touchdown it would be decisive. That created drama, in an odd manner of speaking.

I watched every play of that game, and it held my wandering attention throughout.

The college football national championship game might not compare to the comings and goings of Jim Calhoun or the fortunes of the football Giants in our world, but nationally it remains a significant story.

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